What does you company Vision say about where your company is headed? Here are 13 highly effective principles to evaluate the strength of your company vision statement.
- Paints a clear picture of where the company is headed and the market position(s) the company is striving to stake out.
- Forward looking and directional. Describes the strategic course that will help the company prepare for the future.
- Focused on providing managers with guidance in making decisions and allocating resources.
- Has some wiggle room. Uses language that allows some flexibility that would enable the directional course to be adjusted as market-customer-technology circumstances change.
- Sure the journey is feasible. The path and direction is within the realm of what the company can accomplish; over time, the company would be able to demonstrate measurable progress in achieving the vision.
- Indicates why the directional path makes good business sense. The directional path is in the long term interests of stakeholders (especially shareowners, employees, and suppliers).
- Gives the organisation a sense of direction and purpose, and can be easily communicated. (Ideally, it should be reducible to a few choice lines or memorable slogan).
- Vague or incomplete. Skimps on specifics about where the company is headed or how the company intends to prepare for the future.
- Dwells on the present. The Vision is about what the company once did or does now and not about where it is going.
- Uses overly broad language. Includes all-inclusive language that gives the company licence to pursue any opportunity.
- Vision is stated in bland or uninspiring terms. The statement lacks the power to motivate company personnel and inspire stakeholder’s confidence about the company’s future.
- Relies on superlatives. The vision claims the company’s strategic course is one of being the “best” or “most successful” – lacking specifics about the path the company is taking to get there.
- Runs on and on. Statement is not short and to the point and may lose its audience.
